28 November 2011

Hagelslag, according to the Dutch, is the reason bread was invented*. Bread, you see, is the vehicle for conveying hagelslag, chocolate sprinkles for grown-ups (though they do make kid versions).

It's ideal for people who want to relive the youth they never got to experience because their moms were scatterbrained anti-sugar fascists!
[Box of assorted hagelslag. The best is the original one and the pure chocolate one and the golden one.]

Butter up your bread (or toast, though it might be frowned upon) and sprinkle hagelslag generously on top and eat with a grin: the butter is the binding agent that unites the world.
[I might go to hell for putting hagelslag on toast but it's totally worth it.]

24 November 2011

Sometimes when you least expect it, you can learn something. In this case, I learned something revolutionary from the talented local photographer, Mr. Simoneau when I went to help him dispose of bodies learn desktop publishing crap – I learned that you can make [expletive]ly fantastic bread with very little kneading and patience.

Let's call it Fancy Bread for Lazy People.

I was in complete denial that this would work and boy was I ever schooled!

[Still hot in the Dutch oven]

The NY Times piece that first revealed this technique says that all you need is:

3 cups +/- (~750ml) of flour (mix and match)

1/4 tsp (1.5ml) instant yeast

1-1/4 tsp salt (6.5ml) (I found 1 tsp was sufficient)

1-5/8 cup (385ml) water

Cornmeal, more flour, or wheat bran for dusting

Big bowl

A Dutch oven or something similar with an oven-proof cover. They're on sale this week at Canadian Tire, so you have no excuse unless you live in an armpit.

Patience (also available at Canadian Tire for $12.99)

The secret, Mr. Simoneau says, is magical unicorn saliva. But I think it's the humidity that gets trapped in the preheated pot for the first part of the cooking process.

[Mr. Simoneau making his olive version, where he reduced the salt by about a quarter. Please ignore the yelling face he is making at me.]

[A 50% whole wheat bread with black sesame]

Oh, btw, I said you can hide stuff in the bread; I tried hiding Pee-Wee in it while baking and it worked out quite well (wouldn't you say?).

Thanks, Mr. Simoneau for the great tip! And thanks to Pee-Wee for being such a good sport.

18 October 2011

Who doesn't love tomatoes (aside for those who are deathly allergic to them)? With over 7500 varieties, these chubby little red a55holes really seem to have latched onto our culinary apron strings* and permeated our digestible landscape like someone passing bad gas in an elevator, except it lasting 500 years.

Sometimes, I don't love them because 1) like rabbits, they multiply in such abundance during that short harvest period that you can't eat them fast enough, 2) there's only so much tomato sauce one can eat before imploding, and 3) you can't play Scrabble against them without making a mess.

For three pounds (3-4 lbs) of fresh tomatoes (I used Romas as they are meatier and less juicy and because I had a buttload of them from the CSA basket, but you can use whatever you like — adjust the roasting time).

Clean them.

Halve them lengthwise.

Toss tomatoes with a generous spoonful of coarse salt, pepper, +/- 3/4 cup of olive oil as many cloves of garlic as you want (whole, or crushed or minced -- it doesn't matter cause the vampireswon't come near them anyways).[A55holes.]

Spread them on parchment lined baking sheets with the cut side up (evaporates better). Drizzle with more olive oil. You will probably want to use parchment or aluminium foil because it's a biznatch to scrub clean otherwise.

Slow-roast them in the oven at 275F for about 2 hours or 300F for 1h45 or 225F for 4 hours — it really depends on how patient and hungry you are, and how you like the tomatoes (burnt or less burnt).

Once they're as done as you like it, let them cool, and then eat them.

You can store them in jars and keeping them either frozen or storing them in the fridge (for up to a week, maybe two — depends on how dry the fruits are).

* In the early 1500s, tomatoes (pomodoro) were introduced to Italy but used as Martha Stewareseque tabletop decoration because it was thought they were poisonous, and only the very poor Neapolitans ate them. Who's laughing now?

08 October 2011

So my other job as a vampire hunter, as you know, takes up a bit of my spare time.

And of the brazillionpizzerias in Montreal, ranging from upscale to substitute for cardboard weather-shields even hobos wouldn't even use, there are a number of places where a part-time vampire hunter like myself can kick back and refuel.

Take for instance one of the newer spots – Pizzeria Magpie – in our (now famously famous) Mile-End neighbourhood; their Bianca pizza is perfect for vampire hunters: roast garlic, bechamel, ham, fresh basil, parlsey, dill and coriander. A must for regular humans and vampire hunters alike!

[Oh how this Bianca pizza warmed my cold, black heart.]

Here's a shortcut for roasting garlic in the privacy of your own vampire-hunter lair.

Make no mistake – there are cultivated blueberries in this belle province as well, and it's important not to confuse them with the wild ones which are indubitably sweeter, more flavourful and tinier in person, like your favourite celebrity.

Luckily for us, the spring weather was sh!tty this year and all crops in our part of Canada were late, which means blueberries, normally abundant early August are still around now, mid-September.

01 September 2011

When you have overseas visitors who hear of this Quebec mangled food phenomenon called "poutine" and aren't completely revolted by it enough to try one, you gladly humour them.

In my case, my Dutch visitor, Lin heard through the grapevine that was a magical French-Canadian dish called "poutine" that was the cause of all wars in this world,

So I took her to one of Montreal's best poutine destinations to let her find out for herself: Ma-am-m Bolduc.
[A most memorable plate of poutine: Ma-a-am-m Bolduc's vintage original.]

Lin adhered to the standard French-Canadian instructions for eating poutine: grab a fork and dig in. Ma-am-M Bolduc's fantastic savoury sauce and generous dosage of squeaky cheese complement the homestyle fries to a tee (check out their menu for the full list of poutine varieties).

As the Dutch say in Quebec, Het regnet poutine, meaning, "the world would be a worse off place without deep fryers".

As with all that is deep fried, you need a tasty chaser. My lovely friend chose to wash it all down with locally-made spruce beer.
[Lin about to try spruce beer for the first time. She liked it so much, she inhaled it.]

Contrary to urban myth, spruce beer (bière d'epinette) is a refreshing, non-alcoholic nectar of the gods, that tastes like camping, and increases virility all while helping you with your math homework.
[Doesn't look like much but this bottle of spruce beer will change your life for the better!]

19 July 2011

It's a shame that offal meats are still not widely accepted as they should be, and for no good reason! It's tasty, tasty stuff -- there's no reason to be squeamish! When you think of it, meat is animal muscle, and if the animal devoted its life to becoming food, we respect that and use it as much as possible.

Offal meats (pork intestines and knuckles, chicken hearts, beef tongue, etc.) seem to be more readily sold at Asian butcher counters (Kim Phat, T&T, Marché Orientale, etc) but even then, there's items you can only get by special request.

Sometimes called "fifth quarter" meats by butchers (abat en français) are still even more rare on restaurant menus -- and especially in our fair city where restaurants outnumber inhabitants, we should be seeing more creativity with these meats.

Charcuterie Chez Vito is my favourite neighbourhood butcher (though a tad pricey, the quality is consistently superb). In addition to being dapper in their butcher garb, the butchers are knowledgeable and friendly -- so friendly, you don't mind giving them extra money for their goods!
[Grilled lamb liver à la Vito]

Chez Vito have a few offal meats on hand but they'll be happy to get you whatever you fancy. Since liver is a tad dry when cooked (and can be worn as a shoe when overcooked), Vito recommended an Italian method for grilling liver: wrapping it in caul fat.

*Goz says that they sometimes call it la pella (skin) or buccia (layer) in Italian. He could also tell me that "La cadavere della cameriera è nascosto nella dispensa" means "The cake is wonderful and another glass of wine is not out of the question," and I'd still believe him.

Oh how I had longed for a taste of Grumman 78 since I first caught a glimpse of the repurposed milk truck many, many moons ago... It's the closest we'll get yet to real street food here, and we all know how awesome street food is.
[The awesome smiling Grumman 78 truck! Note the smiling owner waving at me!]

Though focused on the Grumman 78 enterprise, the article raised a few issues that have previously fallen to deaf ears at Montreal's City Hall. Citing hygiene and "aesthetics" as prime deterrents of allowing street food (not to mention impinging on restaurant businesses, as this city has one of the highest ratios of restaurants per resident), they'll only maybe-perhaps-possibly consider letting mobile food dispensaries in public parks as a pilot project. So far, pop-up food stands are only allowed at city-sanctioned events (i.e. Osheaga, Jazz Fest, holiday celebrations, the list goes on).

Consider the growing number of Montreal "street" food ventures like the Fruixi (bike-hitched fresh fruits and vegetables), or the multipurpose Müvbox, one would believe that the city would seize the opportunity to cash in on "more of the new", rather than play the stuffed shirt card and go the way of the pinball machine1.
[Fruixi in the fruit flesh; photo from www.fruixi.com]

Spacing Montreal's discussion presents some fine global exhibits of street food abroad. There's street food in some hygienically questionable places in China, India (BOTH STILL HAVE THE BUBONIC PLAGUE!) and even hyper-clean cities like Singapore — there's no real reason for the absence of this from our urban landscape!

Optimistically, it might be a matter of time before City Hall bows to public demand for more and better food available at street level, unless it really wants to end up as the last duckling in the line that gets squashed under the tires of the fast-moving truck that is our ever-important food culture.

I digress. And this entry is already way too long.</rant>1 This example is not unlike how former Montreal mayor Jean Drapeau successfully crusaded for the ban of pinball machines in 1956 in the city. Soon after after Chicago and New York City say that "pinball is a-ok" did Montreal finally lift the ridiculous by-law in 1977.

24 June 2011

The general rule is, when you go sugar shacking, i.e. maple syrup hunting, you need to like maple syrup. You need to like maple syrup because you will drench everything in this sweet Canadian liquid gold*.[Just looking at the bowl of oreilles de crisse is clogging my arteries.]

Acériculture (I don't think there actually is an English word for it) is bigass industry in Quebec. And this fact, we celebrate by dangerously coming close to inducing adult onset diabetes with the all-you-can-eat formula at our beloved cabanes à sucre.

[A bucket collecting maple sap from a tap. Pretty interesting, especially because it resembles a bucket collecting water but is not!]

(Er, I know my post is much too late in the season for anyone who wants to experience this diabetes-invoking* activity (especially cause it's already la Fête de la St-Jean), but you can make these deep fried pancakes (puffed doughnuts) yourself at home. Recipe below...)

13 June 2011

The next time your smuggled deep-fried fish** gets confiscated at airport customs from your luggage on your way home from the UK because you couldn't resist sharing the lovely flakes of fish with your friends and family here back home, great news! You can take a deliciously deep-fried lump of fish and crispy chips home from right here, in Old Montreal!

[Haddock in maple syrup batter to the left; cod in Burgundy Lion batter to the right. Oh yes.]

Tucked away at the edge of Old Montreal, in the former McGill Hog Dog diner spot, Brit & Chips is Montreal's answer to the staple UK take-away food, complete with artery-clogging tartar sauce and the lemon wedge designed to fit entirely in your mouth.

[Good-looking take-away boxes and the contents about to get eaten! (cw from the top: haddock, cod and salmon).]

Run, don't walk, down to this chippy if you're in the hood. Oh and maybe shell out a measly $11 bucks for some fish and chips while you're there!

** Thanks to the peeps at the Darkside HK, I have been enlightened to this "delicacy" of a fried fish practice in some part of China that will cause me to have nightmares for years to come. As if dreaming about talking sandwiches wasn't already disturbing enough!

[Ramune soda flavour (a nutsoid Japanese soda that has a bottle with a fandangled bottle with a marble in it. Ramune is supposed to be a transliteration of "lemonade" but as we all know, Japanese people went to the washroom when they were handing out the letter L so now they can't pronounce them.]

I don't really eat candy which is why they tend to accumulate but I like the packaging for Hi-Chews. Nothing tastes like aged vintage candy!

17 May 2011

I've never had a sweet tooth, especially for strange extra sweet confections like meringue cookies [jump to thekitchn.com] that look like CJ7left behind. Unfortunately for me (and those subject to my confections), the egg whites didn't hold their form so the cookies kind of collapsed into its turd form.

[A pilfered image of CJ7 from eastday.com who probably pilfered it from the film distributors. Gotta love China!]

My mistake was substituting lime juice for cream of tartar (3 times the required amount of cream of tartar) which added liquid to the egg whites, thus adding water in addition to acidity... big meringue-o no-no!

(Evidently, if you rub cut lemons around the inside of a bowl and let it dry, the white powdery citric acid that is left behind is a good substitute for cream of tartar).

24 April 2011

You won't believe what I've finally seen for the first time ever: Peeps (be forewarned: the site plays slightly annoying Danny Elfman-esque inspired music*)! The Americans have finally invaded downtown Canada!

[Yellow Peeps... kind of gross since they're all conjoined at the wing.]

I have long heard about these baby fowl-shaped marshmallow things through Frawley but had never seen them in the flesh until this week. I thought they would make great skewered treat!

[Remember to thread head through bottom for optimal stability.]

And for extra crispness, a brief scorching over open flames!**[Toasted Easter marshmallow kababs!]

And there, you have a great little caremelized marshmallow kebab to share with the kiddies!

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